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The
Darkling |
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When Marla dies
in a tragic accident, leaving her husband, Jeff, and her
daughter, Charlotte, by themselves, Jeff gets an unusual gift from his
companion, Rubin. The gift is a "darkling", as a matter of fact,
it's the
only darkling that exists. The darkling gives Jeff everything he wants,
the life that he's always dreamed off... but soon Jeff discovers that the
darkling wants something in return...
The Darkling is a terrible movie, but I like it! This is definitely a case
of 'so bad that it's good'. It's strange that it hasn't gotten a US
release yet, as it is from 2000 and it looks like it had quite a
big budget. It's a good thing that we have a DVD company, focusing on
releasing horrormovies here in Sweden, called Horse Creek Entertainment.
They also brought us The Bunker on DVD, making Sweden the second country
in the world getting it on DVD, Poland being the first.
What hit me by
surprise was the acting. It's excellent! Not only do the
actors play their parts very well, developing their characters at fullest
in a very limited time, but they also use their eyes and feelings in a way
that not many actors succeed to do. When the characters are happy, so are
you, you really feel with them. An especially good performance came from
F. Murray Abraham, who played the ghost-chasing uncle in the new remake
of Thirteen Ghosts. Most of the cast is experienced, and there are many
faces to be recognized.
The directing
is really nothing special, but remember, this was made for
TV, and we all know the cheesy TV-movie look some of those TV-movies have.
In this movie we get past the TV feeling, and instead we get a good DTV
feeling, and that's what makes the directing so special.
This movie cost
me about 10 dollars and I can honestly say that it was
worth every dollar. Not often do I react on special sentences in a movie,
but I have to say that I have a favourite line in this movie, which is
when some robbers try to steal Jeff's car and the darkling scares the hell
out of them, saying 'Will kids never learn? YOU DON'T PET THE DARKLING'.
How hilarious isn't that? Now, the voice of the darkling is pretty cheesy,
but it's very dark and it played excellent on my surround sound, so that
didn't bug me a bit, in fact, I ended up liking the dark voice. There are
two things in this movie that I still haven’t figured out though, first
of
all, the wife’s death, when you see this, you probably know what I mean.
And second of all, what's with the ending? I didn't have a clue of what was
going on in the last scene. Somebody please explain.
A bit of a let down here, I can't say that there is anything really worth
mentioning, as it's almost as dry as The Blair Witch Project.
There's really only one track in the whole movie, just that it's remixed
for some scenes. I believe it's supposed to be the darkling singing something
about a visitor? Can't really remember the lyrics, but it resembled a lot
to a Moby song, which I can't remember the title of. Don't get me wrong
though, this is not necessarily a bad thing since the track is kind of good.
I even watched the main menu of the DVD until the track was finished as I
liked it a lot.
It's really a very bad movie, based on the plot. But I couldn't help myself
enjoying it. This is by far the best evil child movie I have ever seen, and
it will probably stay that way for a long time. All in all, I thought it was
well worth the 10 bucks I paid for the DVD, but don't expect a masterpiece,
just take it for what it is, a cheesy good horrormovie that doesn't take
itself to seriously.
Review By: AnthroFred
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